‘Pay better or no teaching’

– School teachers in Oklahoma and Kentucky walked off the job on Monday to protest cuts in pay, pensions and benefits, as discontent over years of sluggish spending on public education spilled over in two more US states and threatened to spread.

A walkout by more than 30 000 teachers in Oklahoma, whose teachers rank among the lowest-paid in the nation, idled about 500 000 of the state’s 700 000 public school students, union officials said.

About 200 of the state’s 584 school districts were affected, including the 20 largest, according to the Oklahoma Education Association, which represents about 40 000 teachers.

In Kentucky, schools were closed either for spring holidays or to allow teachers to protest in the state capital, Frankfort, the state’s teachers union said. The Louisville Courier Journal newspaper reported that schools were closed in all 120 of Kentucky’s counties, 21 as a direct result of a protest rally that drew thousands of teachers to the capital.

The protests come a month after teachers in West Virginia staged a series of strikes for nearly two weeks before winning a pay raise. Last week teachers in Arizona also rallied for more educational funding.

“We won’t let anyone disinvest in public education. We are here for the long haul,” Alicia Priest, head of the Oklahoma Education Association, told a cheering crowd outside the statehouse. Organisers estimated the turnout at 30 000.

Teachers carried signs emblazoned with slogans such as “Our students deserve better”.

Teachers say years of austerity in many states have led to wage stagnation.